A Review of Dossouye

By Bill Ward

The man is back!

Charles R. Saunders rocked Sword-and-Sorcery in the '70s and '80s with his African fantasy hero Imaro, a compelling character who tore through the pages of numerous magazines and whose exploits were ultimately collected in three volumes from DAW. Over the last few years two of those were generously updated and republished by Nightshade Books, causing fans of Saunders’ unforgettable heroes to rejoice at the return of one of the masters of the field.

Now, via Brother Uraeus' newly created Sword & Soul Media imprint, Saunders brings us the tales of Dossouye, a warrior woman from an alternate Africa that — while not the same as Imaro's Nyumbani — nevertheless brims with all of the jeweled kingdoms, scheming sorcerers, doomed quests, and death-defying heroes ravenous fantasy fans have come to expect. It's epic storytelling immersed in a feat of enchanting world-building that at its best rivals Tolkien, and this week at Black Gate reviewer Bill Ward brings you all of the exciting details. 

Virtual Best of the Year -- 2007

By Rich Horton

This is it, the list you've been waiting for. Rich Horton's picks for the best science fiction, fantasy, and space opera stories of the year is always a Black Gate reader's favorite, and this time he's truly outdone himself. Rich pored over 2343 stories — that's over twelve million words — and from that massive mountain of tales chose the very best of the bunch for your edification. The result? A resource that you can use to acquire and read all of the very top novellas, novelettes, and short stories that were published in the field during the last year.

So whenever you start running low on reading material during 2008, pop back over here and take a gander at The List. Our resident reviewing superstar has put in all of the hard work so you won't have to.

New Reviews of Black Gate #11!

This week we thought we'd take you on a tour of some of the online reactions to out latest print issue, Black Gate #11. You'll find a gamut of opinions represented below, from both pros and amateurs.

Our first stop is The Fix, the longtime short fiction review magazine that over the last few years has reinvented itself as an online-only publication. Sherwood Smith delves into each story in #11, praising them by turns as "imaginative and complex," "terrific and visual," and "a masterly blend of image, action, and humor." Sherwood has been a friend to the magazine since we started, and the care and attention she takes with all her reviews is obvious. This is another great overview that will have any fence-sitters out there panting to buy the issue.

Over at Michele Lee's Book Love blog is a look at #11 originally intended for Tangent before that venue went on hiatus. Michele has a more subdued reaction to the issue, suggesting some readers might be irritated by continuing serials leaving some plot threads open, but that didn't sting as much as calling Tolkien's wizard "Gandolf," instead of Gandalf. Ouch. Drop by and leave a comment anyway.

At Grasping for the Wind, another site dedicated to science-fiction and fantasy book reviews, John Ottinger offers a critical analysis declaring, that "nothing in this issue disappoints" (before admitting a bit further down, "I was a bit disappointed by this installment"). On the bright side, John has a lot of praise for selected stories, calling one "extremely well written and very creative in its approach. I've never read anything quite like it before." To which tale was he referring? Click on the link and find out.

Finally, we end with our favorite review, courtesy of Karl Bradley at the Ultimate Sword & Sorcery Blog of Ultimate Destiny. As Karl puts it: "I wish I could've stayed up all night last night and read Black Gate Magazine cover-to-cover and given you a review today. Instead, I went to work. But I have to do something about Black Gate's recent release. So here is my review of the first sentence of every story in the magazine." He actually goes through with it, and it turns out to be a lot of fun, so navigate over to US&SBoUD and enjoy.  

And if you haven't bought Black Gate #11 yet, what are you waiting for? There's no magazine out there publishing more eclectic, thought-provoking, and action-packed tales of Sword-and-Sorcery and fantasy — visit our subscription page and place your order today.

A Review of Broadsword and The World of Broadsword

By Howard Andrew Jones

If there has been a single dominant trend in fantasy over the last thirty years, it has been the glacier-like migration and expansion of the genre from fiction into other media. Movies, video games, RPGs — all have taken the essence of sword-and-sorcery creations set forth in prose and carried them in novel directions that have shaped the genre in unforeseen ways.

This week, Black Gate Managing Editor Howard Andrew Jones kicks off a new column that will explore some of the many fresh gaming systems and products out there, giving you the lowdown on what's brewing in the fantasy RPG field. His first installment reviews the hot 1PG from the mind of Jeff Mejia and his cohorts, Broadsword, along with the system's first major supplement, The World of Broadsword. Have you drifted away from RPGs over the years, frustrated by the steep time and rules-learning commitment? If so, the simplicity and ease of Broadsword might be just what you've been waiting for.

Knight at the Movies: James Bond, The Ultimate Fantasy Hero

By E. E. Knight

When we think of Ian Fleming's iconic superspy, our thoughts turn to action, sleuthing, womanizing, and of course hi-tech gadgets. But how many of us has ever considered James "007" Bond primarily a fantasy hero? E. E. Knight does, and at Black Gate this week he takes a long, thoughtful look at one of the greatest literary and filmic creations of all time, showing us how Bond's appeal is not just as a cold war soldier oozing cool, but as the memorable hero of "fairy tales with Aston Martins, fables with Walthers, swashbucklers with assault helicopters."

A Review of The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights

By Mark Rigney

Most of us remember John Steinbeck (1902-1968) for classic novels such as Tortilla Flat, Of Mice and Men, Cannery Row, The Pearl, East of Eden, and of course his Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winning masterpiece The Grapes of Wrath. But how many of us knew that at his death he left an unfinished adaptation of Mallory's Le Morte d'Arthur, a labor of love he had been tinkering with for over ten years?

Mark Rigney, a longtime fan of T. H. White's The Once and Future King and all things Arthurian, has perused the fine new edition of this book released last fall by Viking Press, with a foreword by Eragon author Christopher Paolini. Click on the link above to find out what he thought of it.

Black Gate Symposium: A Tribute to E. Gary Gygax (1938–2008)

The death of Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, marks the passing of an era. Gygax changed the face of fantasy like no other since J.R.R. Tolkien or Robert E. Howard. D&D brought people together, forged lasting friendships, and introduced a whole new generation to classic fantasy — in the process firing imaginations, heavily influencing the fledgling computer and video game markets, and laying the foundation for the billion-dollar online RPG industry. Just as importantly Gygax invited — indeed, demanded — that his readers become creators themselves, and the young fans he inspired eventually became some of today's best selling authors, including Raymond E. Feist, Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, R. A. Salvatore, Ed Greenwood, and dozens of others.

While his creation became famous the world over, Gygax never truly left his home in Lake Geneva, WI, and remained approachable and active until his death on Tuesday, March 4, 2008. To mark the passing of one of our generation's most creative minds, Black Gate has assembled several personal reminiscences, from BG webmaster and Cimmerian editor Leo Grin, Planet Stories editor and publisher Erik Mona, and Black Gate editors Howard Andrew Jones and John O'Neill.

Finally, we invite you to drop by the Black Gate Blog, where you can leave your own memories and thoughts, either about Gygax or any of his varied creations, from D&D to Greyhawk, Drow to Fantastic Journeys, Lejendary Adventure to Castles & Crusades.

OK, so you're an avid reader of sci-fi and fantasy, and you're always on the lookout for new material. Trouble is, in a field as diverse and prolific as this, where do you start searching? The list of books and other publications released last year is a daunting one. With hundreds — thousands? — of novels, novelettes, and short stories to choose from, it's tougher than ever to winnow them all down to a manageable selection of the very best stories.

Black Gate correspondent Dave Truesdale is here to help. He has done all of the groundwork for you, scouring a vast array of books, anthologies, magazines, and small-press items for the cream of the 2007 crop. The result is a select list of 214 of the top tales printed last year, all of them sorted and arranged right here at your greedy fingertips. All the standouts are here, stories culled from anthologies such as The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Future Weapons of War, Alien Crimes, Logorrhea, The New Space Opera, Coyote Road, Eclipse One, The Solaris Book of New Fantasy, Man vs. Machine, Writers of the Future XXIII, and Thrilling Wonder Stories, along with magazines like Asimov's, Analog, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Realms of Fantasy, Interzone, Paradox, Weird Tales, H. P. Lovecraft's Magazine of Horror, Talebones, Apex, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, and of course Black Gate. It's a massive list that will keep you enmeshed in the best that sci-fi and fantasy has to offer for a long time, and it's only available here at Black Gate. Dive in!

Congratulations to Black Gate's Judith Berman for getting a Nebula nod for her story appearing in Black Gate #10, "Awakening." A fascinating, mind-bending fantasy of ghosts, sorcerers, treasure, haunted cities, perilous forests, and lost souls, it's a standout tale that appeared in one of our best issues yet. Read the entire story here.

When you're through reading Judith's tale, you can click on the issue links to your left and read excerpts from some of the many other talented authors to be found in the pages of Black Gate. If you haven't subscribed yet, get to it — you're missing out on lots of the very best fantasy and Sword-and-Sorcery fiction being published today. And be sure to check out our Back Issue Sale, the perfect way to get caught up on your Black Gate collection, available only while supplies last.

The Roots of Action/Horror

By E. E. Knight

There's been action and horror in films since the very beginning — but when did the now-distinctive "action/horror" genre come about? Join Black Gate's E. E. Knight on a journey across decades in search of the milestones in this longstanding admixture of spooks and dukes. Aliens, bugs, skeletons, vampires and...RVs? They're all here for this eclectic romp through movie history.

A Review of The Name of the Wind

By Robert Rhodes

To start off the new year, Black Gate's Robert Rhodes reviews the first volume in a new trilogy of novels penned by a fresh voice on the fantasy scene, Wisconsin's Patrick Rothfuss. This story was seven years in the making, and it shows. Click inside to discover how Rothfuss' world of fantasy and magic differs in intriguing ways from the work of past masters like Lewis, Tolkien, and Rowling.

Black Gate Short Fiction Reviews

By David Soyka

Black Gate's David Soyka examines two new offerings from Apex SF & Horror Digest and Subterranean Magazine, in the process delineating the modern boundaries of horror. In tales by notables with names like Shepard, Creasey, Tuttle, Priest, Bisson, Tidhar, and Ford, there's a wide swath cut between subtle creeping dread and rank gratuitous gore. Which is more effective in a literary sense? Or as pure visceral terror? Come inside to find out...if you dare.

The Sword-and-Sorcery of History Part I: The Flashing Sword of Hereward the Wake

By Joseph A. McCullough

The literary devices and themes that lie at the heart of Sword-and-Sorcery far predate the twentieth century. Join Black Gate's Joe McCullough on a quest back in time to visit some of the myths and legendry that led to the genre we know and love. In this first installment, McCullough takes a look at the battle-torn life of Hereward the Wake, who thrived during the time of William the Conqueror.

A Review of City of the Beast

By Ryan Harvey

Fantasy readers well know Robert E. Howard's Solomon Kane and Karl Edward Wagner's immortal warrior Kane, but there is another Kane in fantasy. Michael Moorcock is most famous for his Elric novels, but back in the sixties he penned a Sword-and-Planet trilogy that owes much to Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars, one featuring a hero named Michael Kane. This fall, Paizo Publishing re-released the first novel in the series as part of their Planet Stories imprint. But after four decades, does it hold up? Black Gate reviewer Ryan Harvey delves into this new edition to find out.

A Need for Creed

By E. E. Knight

This week, Black Gate lets the author of the Vampire Earth and Age of Fire series of novels take you on a trip through literature and film to illuminate the importance of morality in the fantasy field. "We all need ideals," says E. E. Knight, "gods and heroes to look up to who offer us answers and examples to the Big Questions about right and wrong, life and death." From The Lord of the Rings to Blade Runner, from George Lucas to Carl Jung, Knight sees common moral threads coursing throughout all of the best fantasy. Intrigued? Click the link above and read the whole thing.

The 2007 World Fantasy Convention

By Howard Andrew Jones

It's the capital of the fantasy publishing kingdom, the one con where everyone who is anyone comes together once a year to hobnob, sell, pitch, and perhaps even snag one of the most coveted accolades in the industry, the World Fantasy Award. Howard Jones and John O'Neill once again made the trek under the Black Gate banner, braving the wilds of New York to bring you back tales of pleasant panels, bustling bars, and delightful dealer's rooms — all the things that make a con worthwhile.

A Review of A Vision of Light and In Pursuit of the Green Lion

By Amy Harlib

Judith Merkle Riley writes tales of Middle Ages history and romance spiced with potent amounts of the occult and supernatural. Three Rivers Press has recently brought two classic entries in her Margaret of Asbury series back into print. If you've never sampled Riley's fiction, read Black Gate's review by Amy Harlib to find out what you've been missing.

A Review of Salon Fantastique: Fifteen Original Tales of Fantasy

By Mark Rigney

Two of the shining lights in the fantasy editing field are Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling. Over the years they have brought out a staggering amount of quality fantasy fiction in both book and magazine form, and the many awards they've won stand as a testament to the quality of their selections.

Join Black Gate reviewer Mark Rigney as he delves into one of their latest anthologies, containing tales from writers as diverse as Jeffrey Ford, Paul Di Filippo, Peter S. Beagle, and Lucius Shepard. 

A Review of Jade Tiger

By Rich Horton

Since 1999 Jenn Reese has made a name for herself writing fantasy tales at times whimsical, contemplative, and moving for markets as diverse as Strange Horizons, Flypaper, and Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword and Sorceress book anthologies. Now we finally have a novel from her, one with plenty of romance and exotic, kung-fu crime fighting to keep you reading. Black Gate's Rich Horton gives you the details.